26 Feb Victorian values
more culture clash
A long weekend of drama that we could well do without, I’m left just feeling sick and wanting to go home and forget about this place.
Friday morning a text from Thomas, asking if I will visit hostel that day and to bring swimming gear so we can take Alice swimming. He adds that he is ‘confused about his condition’. When I arrive Alice is clearly upset and Athena arrives wanting to collect her motorbike which has now been delivered to a post office on the northern ring road. She doesn’t want to drive it herself through the city and we would have to take two bikes and three people to get the new bike and the original ones back. Would work if Alice was one of the drivers but she is too upset to contemplate it so ends up with Thomas and Athena going by taxi and I stay to comfort Alice and persuade her to go to the mall with me and Tito (computer student boyfriend of Ivana one of the hostel girls). At the mall I do my western food shop and we go to a café for a pizza slice but Alice refuses anything more than a drink and seems to have deliberately left her mobile behind so we can’t pay to get it ‘topped up’ allowing her call home to her family and daughter in Sumatra.
Back at the hostel Athena needs a lift home, she is leaving the bike at the hostel while she is away for the next week. I offer to take her and to do it so I can get home in daylight means setting off without time to talk with Thomas, which is unfortunate. The following morning I hear from Biwa that they had been out in the car together Friday evening and that Thomas had been in a state and crying.
It was 7 or 8 am on the Saturday that I bumped into Pak Biwa in the office in the village. I waited for him and T.O. to finish their business and got him up to my room for my long-prepared spiel about the financial problems of Thomas and Alice (apparently not having been paid since xmas). He acknowledged that there were difficulties but was unable to discuss them without an interpreter which he would find and bring to a further confidential meeting with me on Monday. A couple of hours later as I’m on my way north with T.O. and team I get a text from Alice saying that Biwa and Wati want rid of her, Thomas is not talking to her again and she has left the hostel and is feeling alone. I reply trying to say that Thomas will have to accept that he has to choose between Biwa and Alice, but that eventualy he will take Alice – a good test for my Bahasia Indonesian! On way back to the village I text Thomas to say I’m coming over but no-one is there when I arrive. Ivana and Tito don’t know where either of them is and I simply go to bed avoiding Biwa and Wati who arrive about 7pm and either don’t notice I’m there or see my bike and assume I’ve gone out with the couple.
Sunday morning and Wati is washing all the public area tiled floors that Alice usually does and Biwa is sweeping up the leaves like Thomas usually does – a good sight but difficult to escape unnoticed so I am forced to put a brave front on and march out to my bike, saying good morning and asking if they have seen Thomas or Alice (which they haven’t but want to). Ibu Wati restrains herself merely expressing surprise that I had spent the night in the hostel. Setting off then to an internet café I find Alice only a few yards away from the hostel and who breaks down in tears, she has spent the night with Ivana and tito in his room down the street and we return there to discuss what to do. It seems that Thomas has gone off with both mobiles but has them both switched off – maybe for privacy or so that he can just check texts from time to time and avoid live calls? We text around, left right and centre, vso and his Jogya contacts to little avail, it seems he was at the hospital to see Maria Saturday morning and had the keys to her bike but had not visited Athena as planned and to give her a letter to take to an uncle on her jounies next week. We bike up to an old friend’s house on an unsuccessful mission. After lunch Alice decides to return to the hostel with all of us and is rapidly noticed by Biwa and Wati. Seems that she hid in the kitchen before being found and cornered whilst Ivana, Tito and myself were summoned to watch the execution. As Biwa berated her I suggested she might like to sit down but Biwa angrily pushed the chair to one side and forced Alice into a crouching position on the floor like a mangy dog while he shouted and Wati screamed abuse at her. Big, ballsy Ivana in tears and Tito stepped forward to hold and comfort her. For my part I was transfixed, not from any deference for local customs and culture but just mortified at the Dickensian scene I was watching. Alice was clearly told to leave the premises and to hand over her identity card and the keys to their room. I took her to pack a few things to take with her on the bike butIvana, Tito and self were called back for some sort of briefing by Biwa and Wati mostly in Indonesian of course but I was accused of possibly having had a girl in my room the previous night (chance would be a fine thing!) and banned from the hostel ( I pointed out that Maria had invited me to use her living room to sleep in if I wished but with the rain stopping I would be returning to the village after all). Biwa said that Thomas had always been paid his money regularly and on time and if he didn’t pass any on to Alice that was his affair. I excused my self and left to help Alice pack and to take her to Tito’s place where we had to wait for the couple themselves to break free from the hostel – I don’t know if Ivana got or will get her own marching orders. I don’t know if Biwa and Wati still hope to hang onto Thomas who is so useful to the hostel and for his presentations for Biwa’s enterprises.
Alice rejects the possible use of Athena’s house because it is so far outside the city and difficult to get to her classes and Tito promises to help her find accommodation the next day – I leave money to help with any expenses, it seems that she will be allowed to collect her new computer from the hostel but nothing else until Thomas turns up. A cheap canteen chair has had its seat cut, presumably by Alice when she left or was cornered at the end may have to be paid for whether or not she and Thomas are due any wages. And so back home, too late to call on Maria in the hospital for observation following her accident but expecting to be released on Monday and to text Thomas briefly to let him know Alice is safe, if traumatised and to let us help him. Messages on hold as the phones are still switched off. Hope he is safe and makes contact soon.
A long weekend of drama that we could well do without, I’m left just feeling sick and wanting to go home and forget about this place.
Friday morning a text from Thomas, asking if I will visit hostel that day and to bring swimming gear so we can take Alice swimming. He adds that he is ‘confused about his condition’. When I arrive Alice is clearly upset and Athena arrives wanting to collect her motorbike which has now been delivered to a post office on the northern ring road. She doesn’t want to drive it herself through the city and we would have to take two bikes and three people to get the new bike and the original ones back. Would work if Alice was one of the drivers but she is too upset to contemplate it so ends up with Thomas and Athena going by taxi and I stay to comfort Alice and persuade her to go to the mall with me and Tito (computer student boyfriend of Ivana one of the hostel girls). At the mall I do my western food shop and we go to a café for a pizza slice but Alice refuses anything more than a drink and seems to have deliberately left her mobile behind so we can’t pay to get it ‘topped up’ allowing her call home to her family and daughter in Sumatra.
Back at the hostel Athena needs a lift home, she is leaving the bike at the hostel while she is away for the next week. I offer to take her and to do it so I can get home in daylight means setting off without time to talk with Thomas, which is unfortunate. The following morning I hear from Biwa that they had been out in the car together Friday evening and that Thomas had been in a state and crying.
It was 7 or 8 am on the Saturday that I bumped into Pak Biwa in the office in the village. I waited for him and T.O. to finish their business and got him up to my room for my long-prepared spiel about the financial problems of Thomas and Alice (apparently not having been paid since xmas). He acknowledged that there were difficulties but was unable to discuss them without an interpreter which he would find and bring to a further confidential meeting with me on Monday. A couple of hours later as I’m on my way north with T.O. and team I get a text from Alice saying that Biwa and Wati want rid of her, Thomas is not talking to her again and she has left the hostel and is feeling alone. I reply trying to say that Thomas will have to accept that he has to choose between Biwa and Alice, but that eventualy he will take Alice – a good test for my Bahasia Indonesian! On way back to the village I text Thomas to say I’m coming over but no-one is there when I arrive. Ivana and Tito don’t know where either of them is and I simply go to bed avoiding Biwa and Wati who arrive about 7pm and either don’t notice I’m there or see my bike and assume I’ve gone out with the couple.
Sunday morning and Wati is washing all the public area tiled floors that Alice usually does and Biwa is sweeping up the leaves like Thomas usually does – a good sight but difficult to escape unnoticed so I am forced to put a brave front on and march out to my bike, saying good morning and asking if they have seen Thomas or Alice (which they haven’t but want to). Ibu Wati restrains herself merely expressing surprise that I had spent the night in the hostel. Setting off then to an internet café I find Alice only a few yards away from the hostel and who breaks down in tears, she has spent the night with Ivana and tito in his room down the street and we return there to discuss what to do. It seems that Thomas has gone off with both mobiles but has them both switched off – maybe for privacy or so that he can just check texts from time to time and avoid live calls? We text around, left right and centre, vso and his Jogya contacts to little avail, it seems he was at the hospital to see Maria Saturday morning and had the keys to her bike but had not visited Athena as planned and to give her a letter to take to an uncle on her jounies next week. We bike up to an old friend’s house on an unsuccessful mission. After lunch Alice decides to return to the hostel with all of us and is rapidly noticed by Biwa and Wati. Seems that she hid in the kitchen before being found and cornered whilst Ivana, Tito and myself were summoned to watch the execution. As Biwa berated her I suggested she might like to sit down but Biwa angrily pushed the chair to one side and forced Alice into a crouching position on the floor like a mangy dog while he shouted and Wati screamed abuse at her. Big, ballsy Ivana in tears and Tito stepped forward to hold and comfort her. For my part I was transfixed, not from any deference for local customs and culture but just mortified at the Dickensian scene I was watching. Alice was clearly told to leave the premises and to hand over her identity card and the keys to their room. I took her to pack a few things to take with her on the bike butIvana, Tito and self were called back for some sort of briefing by Biwa and Wati mostly in Indonesian of course but I was accused of possibly having had a girl in my room the previous night (chance would be a fine thing!) and banned from the hostel ( I pointed out that Maria had invited me to use her living room to sleep in if I wished but with the rain stopping I would be returning to the village after all). Biwa said that Thomas had always been paid his money regularly and on time and if he didn’t pass any on to Alice that was his affair. I excused my self and left to help Alice pack and to take her to Tito’s place where we had to wait for the couple themselves to break free from the hostel – I don’t know if Ivana got or will get her own marching orders. I don’t know if Biwa and Wati still hope to hang onto Thomas who is so useful to the hostel and for his presentations for Biwa’s enterprises.
Alice rejects the possible use of Athena’s house because it is so far outside the city and difficult to get to her classes and Tito promises to help her find accommodation the next day – I leave money to help with any expenses, it seems that she will be allowed to collect her new computer from the hostel but nothing else until Thomas turns up. A cheap canteen chair has had its seat cut, presumably by Alice when she left or was cornered at the end may have to be paid for whether or not she and Thomas are due any wages. And so back home, too late to call on Maria in the hospital for observation following her accident but expecting to be released on Monday and to text Thomas briefly to let him know Alice is safe, if traumatised and to let us help him. Messages on hold as the phones are still switched off. Hope he is safe and makes contact soon.
posted by bairuide | 1:55 pm
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